Present a PDF

vivePDF turns any PDF into a full-screen slide show without a separate presentation program. While you present, you can draw on the page, use a laser pointer or spotlight, switch to a black or white board, and with a projector connected see your notes on your own screen only.

Start a presentation

The presentation toolbar appears when you move the pointer to the bottom edge of the screen.

Drawing and pointing tools

Pick a tool from the toolbar or with a single key:

Key	Tool
L	Laser pointer
P	Pen
H	Highlighter
E	Eraser
S	Spotlight
M	Magnifier
U	On-screen ruler
Z	Zoom to a dragged area
V	Select, move or delete drawings

The Shapes menu on the toolbar holds Line, Arrow, Rectangle, Ellipse and Measure length, and Text lets you type on the page. For a selected drawing, R and Shift+R rotate it right and left, Ctrl+D duplicates it and Del deletes it. Ctrl+Z and Ctrl+Y undo and redo drawing.

The on-screen ruler shows real centimetres; drag it to move or turn it, and lines drawn along its edge come out straight.

Defaults for the pen colour and width, the laser colour and the spotlight size are in Settings › Presentation. Every presentation shortcut is listed on the Keyboard shortcuts page.

Black and white boards

B or . turns the screen black and W turns it white. Use the empty screen to draw the audience’s attention back to you, or draw on it like a whiteboard. A board has its own Board tools bar: select, pen, highlighter, shapes and eraser, colours that suit the board, size presets, undo and redo, Clear board and Back to slides. Each board keeps its own undo history.

Notes, timer and clock

• N shows or hides the Speaker notes panel for the current page. Notes are kept page by page and shared with presenter view.
• T shows or hides the timer, and C the clock.
• If a page contains code, K opens the detected code blocks and moves between them.

Presenter view (two screens)

With a projector or second screen connected, press Alt+F5 or click Presenter view on the Viewer toolbar; Alt+Shift+F5 starts from the page you are on. The projector shows only the slide. Your screen shows the Current page, a large Next page preview, the Elapsed time, the Clock and your Speaker notes.

• The preview’s arrows let you look further ahead without changing the projector; clicking a preview jumps the presentation there.
• The pen, laser, spotlight and boards appear on the projector too.
• Swap screens trades the roles of the two screens, and End presentation closes it.
• Notes are saved in the app’s data folder on this computer; the PDF itself is not changed.

If the document has unsaved changes, the projector shows the file as it is saved on disk, so vivePDF first asks you to choose between Save and present and Present anyway.

Insert items while presenting

The Insert (+) button on the presentation toolbar and in the presenter console offers Add formula, Add shape, Add function graph, Add molecule, Add table, Add chart, Add flowchart, Add diagram (Mermaid), Add question and Add answer key. Prepare the item, then click the page to place it; Esc cancels. You can move and resize a placed item like a drawing and double-click it to edit it again. The Insert menu works on the black and white boards too.

Keep or discard drawings

Presentation drawings and inserted items are temporary by default. When you leave the presentation, vivePDF asks Keep the presentation drawings?:

• Save to the PDF writes the drawings into the PDF as annotations; board drawings are added as new pages at the end.
• Discard drawings removes them all.
• Decide later keeps them as an unsaved change; they are written into the PDF when you save the document.

To keep permanent notes every time, set Drawings to Permanent notes in Settings › Presentation. For the rest of the settings, see Settings and privacy.